


Simplicity

by mmmdraco



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew thinks on his way home from a private moment with Mary. (Spoilers for s03ep01.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simplicity

Matthew cursed sometimes at the length of the walk between his home and the Abbey proper. It was just long enough to be a nuisance, but manageable enough that he couldn't bring himself to take the car _all_ of the time. But with Mother along, the car was the preferred option. She had taken to their new lifestyle much better than he had. Simplicity was defined now only in the moments where nothing was happening at all. And this moment was not simple.

The grounds of Downton were kept pristine and Matthew's eyes caught on early daffodils and budding branches lit gently by the moonlight as he strode along, his breath coming out in puffs of white in the cooling night air. Had anyone told him, years ago, that he _would_ end up marrying Mary, he wouldn't have believed it. Hadn't believed it when a handful of people did try, and wasn't certain he believed it now that their marriage was only hours away. 

She hadn't forgiven him yet for his opinions on the money, but she'd granted him a kiss and he had felt the promise within it. Their life together would not be an effortless romance, but if he couldn't live his life of simplicity, then one of effort put toward only the most important of things would do nicely. 

He found fault in this world that he found himself in. He couldn't deny that. And he found fault in Mary when he thought of her as a list of attributes catalogued upon a page, but when his eyes took in her beauty and he listened to the thrum of her voice as she worked herself into a passionate tizzy about something and when her lips found his own with their eyes closed tightly against the superstition of him seeing her before the wedding... In those moments, she had no faults whatsoever. 

Thus far, they hadn't had many moments together that weren't also populated by Downton staff and members of their family, but those few private moments they had gotten, well, those were simplicity. It hadn't been what Matthew had quested for when he went looking for his happiness, but it had found him all the same. The life ahead of him promised to be exciting in only the best of ways.

He'd found himself, of late, forgetting to be annoyed by the fripperies of Downton, and finding himself at a loss when he had to do up his own shirtcuffs one morning. Try though he might to return to form, anything at all would be an uphill battle, but it wasn't yet something he was willing to forget about. He couldn't take Mother away from her causes and he couldn't take Mary from her family, so he must be content to stay and make the best of it, even if Mary was correct and they were headed toward poverty. He didn't know the numbers yet for just how much the Earl had lost, but Matthew had managed on something much closer to a pittance than most of the members of the family had, and he still had faith.

His plan for simplicity might still come to fruition, or they might all be saved. With Mary at his side, both options seemed equally desireable.


End file.
